Elanah Kindlebright watched the rift from the safety of her tent.

The scar in reality rippled quietly in the distance; a gash ripped through empty air, ugly and broken—a jagged tear in what was supposed to be a stable planar boundary. Inside, a world of flesh twitched and pulsed to a gargantuan heartbeat. It was like peering into the wound of an impossibly vast giant, with its blood, skin, and flesh making up the world on the other side.

Blackrend. The Blighted Realm.

The rift leading into it was still. Silent, save for the occasional trickle of ichor that dripped out from the other side. A pool of red blood stained the ground below the rift. If not for the shielding dome overhead, keeping the Drowning Rains away, she was sure that the rift would have already stained the floods with a deep, crimson shade.

She regarded the rift in the distance with pursed lips.

Massive, magitech cannons surrounded it from all sides, constantly manned by House Summersky’s elite Shissavi. Protectors. Several perimeters of thorn-wall battlements circled around the gash, and the in-between was lined with artificed mines, ready to blast the blight-bloated beasts to smithereens. Troops stood in mage-raised walls, watching. Five hundred. That was how many soldiers were stationed around the rift. Each of them was armed to the teeth with the best artificed gear that the House could afford. Rifles, pistols, bladed scithars; each curved blade glowing with runelight. It was a formidable force. That was fact. Anywhere else in the realm—save for the Shadow Woods—and they would have been a force to reckon with.

And yet, there was still a palpable feeling of nervousness among the men and women stationed near the rift. The air was stretched thin like rubber among them—tense, anxious, ready to snap at a moment's notice.

That was a reaction that the horrors of Blackrend deserved.

No enemy had ever terrorized the Coalition more than the Crimson Tide. Not even the Forged.

Quiet as it was, Elanah still felt the distinct feeling of being watched. A tiny prickle of fear on the back of her neck, like the ice-tip point of a knife’s edge, pressed so lightly against her skin that it was almost difficult to notice. But still, it was there. Ever-present. Undeniable in its existence.

It made her afraid to take her eyes away from the rift. It felt as if the horrors of the Crimson Tide would come spilling out the moment she averted her eyes, so all she did was stare. Watch. And wait.

Wait for something to go wrong.

It took all Elanah had not to shiver as she felt someone approach from behind.

“Unsettling, isn’t it?” a voice asked, and Elanah turned to face Horasce Halcyn Summersky, crown prince of his House. He was a tall amarid—six feet and thorn-bearded, with gold-speckled hair that was the color of dried blood. He wore Silverwood plate and a crown of bone and branch and elkhorn atop his head. The saer frowned at the sight of the rift. “This is supposedly the eleventh one that’s opened this week. Four in our territory, and reports of seven from the other Houses.”

Elanah lowered the arms she had crossed over her chest. She gave the prince a bow, “Ashari qunir, saer Halcyn. That is worrying news.”

Halcyn nodded to her in acknowledgement.

“De’ashari qunir, miss Elanah. It’s been a time since we last saw each other. I’m regretful that I had to call you here on such short notice despite your vacation.”

“I owe your House a debt, saer. Whenever you need me, call. I’ll come.”

“The House appreciates your loyalty much. How is Rugsh?”

“He is old, but healthy. Especially after he stopped working as a smith. He tends to plants now, in a garden outside of the house. It’s made him mellower.”

“But not boring, I hope.”

Elanah showed a rare smile, “Never.”

At that, the prince nodded, and Elanah felt the weight of business fall over them both. The small talk was over, now. Pleasantries addressed. Now was the time to speak of heavier things—of dangers looming beyond their reality. Of war. Saer Halcyn faced the pulsing tear in the distance with a look that brought a palpable weight over their shoulders.

“The numbers, like always, are a lie. Fourteen rifts have opened in the Land of Fire over the past week and the other Houses, despite their denial, have no doubt seen a similar amount.”

Elanah nodded, “Does the Riftwalker’s Association know why?”

“Nothing but speculation. They’re stretched thin at the moment, but the rift analysts will be here soon.”

“How many riftwalkers with them? A team?”

“One was all they could spare.”

The air turned heavy. That alone spoke of the gravity of the situation. Riftwalkers were never abundant—not with such a high turn-over rate—but to only be able to spare one? Out of the hundreds that they had? It made Elanah frown. Just how many rifts were opening across the realm?

How long until the next Convergence War?

Saer Halcyn noticed her expression as she stared at the rift. He crossed his arms, “Your worries seem to be the same as mine. That is good. War is brewing, miss Elanah. And not just in Caereith. Kalsdyn has been making moves on the other realms as well. Cassima and Astalon have been on high alert for weeks, now. Preparing. The House might need you to divert your attention to other projects in the near future.”

Elanah nodded, “You need weapons. Chemical weapons.”

“Ones that work even on blighted flesh.”

“Is that why I’m here?”

“It is,” the prince said, before snapping his fingers. Immediately, a group of soldiers entered the tent and began setting up a temporary lab. Huge tanks, rows of vials, beakers, burners, and glass instruments. Crates, full of materials for her to use. The saer placed a hand on her shoulder. “Can we rely on your expertise again, miss Blight Witch?”

She blinked at her old title, then nodded. Old as she was, titles were powerful things, and hearing it brought out a side of her that Elanah hadn’t seen in a while. Her back turned straighter. Her eyes sharper. She turned her eyes to the piles of equipment being set up and nodded.

“Come back in an hour, Halcyn. I’ll have something for you then.”

He smiled and turned to leave, “That’s more like the old you. I’m happy to see it. Show us your best, miss Elanah.”

“I’ve never shown my craft anything less. Ashaeli annor, prince.”

“De’ashaeli annor.”

Elanah didn’t wait for him to leave.

Walking past the saer with a curt nod, she approached a table and tapped it with her finger, “Stack the reactive materials there, you lot. Stop staring. Split them into three parts,” she said, before turning to another crate-carrying man in a coat. “And you! Bring that equipment here—carefully. Good. Set the mana-batteries and leave spares next to the control terminal.”

Quickly, the lab around her came up to her standard. Clean, spotless, and arranged in a way that maximized efficiency. Her assistants lined up—outsourced alchemists, all skilled enough to qualify for her standard.

Elanah didn’t waste time assigning them to tasks.

She split them into teams, directing them, supervising, spitting orders even as she picked up a clipboard and began scratching ink onto the paper. Formulas both old and new wrote themselves down on the parchment, complete with instructions, and she passed each sheet to their respective groups.

“I want this purified in three minutes. Activate these materials and open the burners—white-hot, heating plates set right over the flame’s tip. Make me three beakers’ worth of Agdane’s solution and one more for Chassel’s. Someone get me…”

Midway through her orders, the tent’s flaps opened. Elanah turned to look as a large, glass cage was wheeled into the room. Its contents were invisible at first, hidden under the glare of the lights. But slowly, as more and more people realized what it held, the room’s busy atmosphere slowed to a chilling halt.

The glass cage was a cylinder with a domed top, sealed airtight into a bolted, steel platform. However, it was not the cage that drew their attention, but what it held.

Elanah stared at the thing inside of it.

It was an amarid, curled into itself. Hugging its knees. At least, that was what it looked like at first. But as she came closer, Elanah realized what it was.

A monster. A ruined imitation of life.

The humanoid thing’s face was skinless, and its expression was blank. Eerie in the way that only statues were. She would have thought the creature to be frozen, if its lidless, bloodshot eyes didn’t roll around its skull. If its flesh didn’t constantly coil and writhe, subtly pulsing with the evils underneath.

It watched the room with alien regard, cold, lifeless. Staring at soldiers like they were nothing but ash. And when the eyes found her…

She looked into them.

And they were so very empty.

Elanah buried her hands inside of her alchemy coat’s pockets. She clenched them inside, forcing the trembling of her hands to cease. Alchemists could not have shaky hands. To quiver was to fail, and so she controlled her fear. Just like she did her anxiety. She pushed it to the far corner of her mind, leaving it for later.

Now, she had to work.

The thing in front of her was a puppet, dangling on strings of flesh. An abomination created by that wretched realm.

And it was her job to kill it.

Over and over and over again, until she figured out how to stop it from coming back. She turned to the assistant next to her, whose face was ghost-pale. Elanah knew shock when she saw it, and she would not have it in her lab. So she slapped him. The audible clap of palm against cheek brought the room’s attention to her. Eyes wide in surprise, the alchemist stared. Elanah tilted her head.

“Feel better?”

He blinked, then slowly nodded. Elanah turned, and suddenly, her pen was moving again. Scratching instructions and formulae into existence. Once again, alchemy took over and shoved away everything else.

“Good. Then let’s get to work.”

Elanah's airship reached the outskirts of Felzan late into the afternoon.

Closer to the center of the realm, the city was situated along one of the twisting mountain ranges of Central Caereith’s geography. Here, the forests were tall and the crags vast, alternating between cloud-breaking mountaintops and abyss-black ravines.

Elanah watched from the deck of the ship, flying below the storm clouds darkening the sky. The ship hummed with the perpetual sound of anti-gravity runes and force thrusters over the rain, and Elanah’s eyes watched the canvas sails and shipside wings snap against galewind, flaring forward to steer the vessel through the sky. The ship shifted ever so slightly with the echo of creaking, groaning wood, and the boat's various limbs constantly bent and curled, catching the wind. Changing course.

Bringing them closer to the distant Felzan.

Her eyes wandered down from the wings. Down to the world below.

In the wake of the Drowning Rains, Caereith was flooded once more. The ravines, which previously dug deep into the earth, were now sprawling rivers, roaring their violent currents down the valley paths. Flooded forests thrived under the water as hibernating lakeweeds emerged from the soil. Gilled deer swam beneath the water in droves, swimming along to the river-churn flow, and birds shed their feathers for fins, altering their bodies to adjust to the annual rains. Much of Caereith was so. It seemed ironic to her that despite being the most intelligent creatures in the realm, amarids were the ones that had the most trouble adjusting to the yearly affair. The land rose and fell beneath her; rolling mountain tops and sunken plateaus, wreathed in mist and cloud and vast waterfalls that crashed into the floodwaters below.

People often said that Caereith had no oceans. And that was true. What Caereith had was far worse—a perpetual cycle of flooding and drying, blossoming into the Nine Realms’ most diverse collection of forest wildlife. Still, despite all the hassle the rains brought, it made their home unique. Beautiful. After all, the birds in Astalon did not grow fins. The bears of Ilbithar did not have scales, and the serpents of Cassima bore no gills. Only in Caereith did such unique creatures thrive.

And so it would only be a bigger tragedy for Blackrend to invade and corrupt the life of her home once again.

The thought stayed in Elanah’s mind like poison, causing her anxiety to flare up. It felt like ice, licking frost up her throat. It made her nauseous. Worried. For not only herself, but her husband as well. Rugsh was old, now. Strong still, as trolls were, but frail in a way that only became apparent with age.

But she didn’t let the worry show on her face. No, anxiety was a fruitless thing. A waste of energy. She would let it boil in her gut and claw at her chest, but she would not let it control her life. Never again. She closed her eyes and breathed. Once. Thrice. Enough to let the fear and the worry flow down from her and out from her feet. She let it sink into the ground, dissipating. Waiting until it left her.

Calm returned. She exhaled.

Elanah opened her eyes and watched the City of Lights appear behind the curve of a massive mountain-turn.

A dome of force kept the rain away from it, splashing harmlessly against walls of solid energy. And underneath that shield, the city burned. Not with flames, not with rage, but with passion and light. Even under the rains, even under the rising night. Suncatcher trees made up most of the city, the trunks of each dozens of meters thick. They were bulbous things—like vases, fat and curved, opening into a crown of luminescent leaves overhead. The dim, blue light of the trees suffused the city with a pale glow. Bridgeways spiderwebbed around the massive plants, connecting hanging houses and trunk-mounted buildings. Amarids dotted these massive walkways like little blots of black under the light.

The airship she rode began to descend, and Elanah leaned over the rails, watching the city approach. The airship bow broke through the veil of leaves and docked against the local shipyard, nestled safely inside of the trees. Elanah yawned, suddenly tired. Finally—home at last. She looked around at the collection of commercial airships docked idly beside the hanging, metal walkways, and shipyard maintenance crews working the ships in their blue jumpsuits.

Rugsh would have loved to work here, she was sure. It was such a shame that she’d taken so long to bring him here with her. The memory of it was still confusing, even now. Elanah knew she could be a nervous wreck internally, but she was never illogical. Never.

So why did she leave her husband alone in another territory, dying of cancer while she worked on a cure from afar?

Frustrating. Those little moments of stupidity heckled her, lately. Little bits of memories that seemed wrong, somehow—like they were missing a piece. An incomplete puzzle, hastily drawn over with a caricature that barely fit.

Disembarking from the airship, she frowned all the way home.

Her house was close to the Summersky Estate, nestled between a mountainside plateau and one of the suncatchers sprouting from the stone. Unlike the castle-mansions next to her home, the house was a cozy little cottage. Just enough for three people to live in. She unlocked the door and stepped inside to find the living room dark. The lights were off, and the coals of the hearth were cold.

Sighing, Elanah took off her coat and hung it by the rack. She rolled her arms, wincing at the cricks and cracks of old age that ached all over her body.

She didn’t know how Rugsh managed to deal with it for so long; aging. Being old was terrible.

Yawning, Elanah stepped past the backdoor and out to the garden behind the house. There, flower vines and berrybushes grew in an organized chaos, tangling and curling over each other in a mess that only Rugsh could hope to navigate. She stepped into the paths she knew, pushing aside stray branches and walking over exposed roots in her search for her husband.

Elanah found him in the center of the garden, where he usually spent his time.

Rugsh sat on a wheelchair, facing a rowan tree that he’d planted in the middle of the garden. Its autumn leaves glowed purple under the suncatcher tree’s blue light, and she approached, stopping to stand beside him. Elanah looked up at the tree in silence. Beside her, Rugsh smiled softly.

“Welcome back,” he said, turning his head to her. “You look tired, Lanah. Do you want to sit?”

She shook her head, “I like standing. Sitting next to you makes me feel tiny.”

Rugsh chuckled softly, “Hm. I suppose it would, even with me in a chair.”

A moment of silence passed between them both. A wind rustled through the trees, and from above, a stray rowan leaf fluttered down onto Rugsh’s lap. He plucked it, the leaf looking truly tiny in his massive, stone fingers. The troll gave the leaf a smile that only old men could give—serene, at peace, with a history behind it that felt like the stillwater surface of an ancient lake.

“Do you remember how we met?” he asked, and Elanah nodded.

“Under a rowan tree. I’m surprised you still remember. Is your memory better, lately?”

“Hah. No, I’m still old. It’s just a memory that I don’t want to forget,” he said, and Elanah smiled. Nodded. And then it was silent again. There were many silences between them like this. But each one was pleasant. Never stale, never strained.

A pleasant thing.

After a moment, Rugsh looked up at the tree with her. “You know, whenever I feel lonely, I like to sit under this tree. It was the first thing I planted, if you recall. Back when we first moved here.”

Elanah nodded. “You spent weeks fussing over it, because of all the misfortune it seemed to attract. Blight, parasites—but you still managed to keep it alive out of sheer persistence. At times, the tree probably felt more like your wife than I did.”

He laughed, and it was louder than before. Not the boom of laughter that was his, years ago, but closer to it. Elanah was glad to hear it come from him again.

“I’m only marrying one leaf-head in my life, and she’s already standing next to me. No—I just like this tree. I enjoyed raising it into what it is now, tall and strong. Capable of living a nice, pleasant life even without our help.”

Elanah tilted her head at him, “Are you asking me for more children?”

“Ancestors, if only. But I’m old, and we have enough. Just one is enough.”

“Mm. One is good. I wonder if he’s eating well.”

“That boy is, for sure.”

“Do you think he wanted a brother?”

Rugsh shrugged and motioned to the tree, his wrinkled face smiling wryly. “Well, he’s already got one. This rowan’s my son as much as he is.”

Elanah felt herself frown. There it was again. The missing piece. The one that the tree always reminded her of. She stared up at the thing she and Rugsh raised, and the familiar lick of anxiety clawed at her throat once more. Just what was that about? What did it mean?

What was this rowan supposed to be? She shook her head.

It felt important for her to know.